1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an agitation kit including an information-written medium and a liquid container, and to a recording apparatus including the agitation kit.
2. Related Art
Many of the inks used in ink jet recording apparatuses are mixtures in which particles of, for example, a pigment are uniformly dispersed in a dispersion medium. If such an ink is left standing for a long time, the dispersed particles, whose specific gravity is generally higher than that of the dispersion medium, are liable to settle. Settling of the dispersed particles often results in color nonuniformity, ink clogging or ejection failure of the recording apparatus, degraded recording quality and other problems. In order to prepare an ink in which particles are uniformly dispersed to some extent, some proposals to provide an ink agitation mechanism are made. For example, JP-A-2009-45944 proposes an agitation technique in which a stirring ball is placed in an ink cartridge.
In this technique, however, if the user of the ink cartridge continues to use the ink cartridge without recognizing the necessity to agitate the ink, recording quality is not improved. More specifically, if recording is performed after the ink cartridge is left neglected for a long time without being agitated even though the ink cartridge equipped with a stirring ball is used and the ink needs to be agitated, problems, such as color nonuniformity, ink clogging, or ejection failure, are likely to occur.